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Worldwide mobile phone sales slipped to 93.8 million units in the first quarter of 2002, down 3.8 percent from this time last year, according to new research.
Numbers from Gartner Dataquest show that market-leader Nokia experienced a decline in global sales to end-users, compared to the same quarter last year. Nokia did manage to register a slight increase in market share versus the same quarter in 2001, despite weak market conditions in some of its core markets.
Motorola's market share grew strongly in the first quarter of 2002, thanks to its continued dominance of the Chinese mobile phone market and its strength in CDMA markets worldwide. CDMA stands for "code division multiple access" and refers to a high-speed, secure communication protocol used in second and third generation mobile phones.
Samsung and Siemens experienced the strongest increase in sales, with growth rates of 48.6 percent and 24.1 percent, respectively, during the quarter.
"Samsung's spectacular growth is a reflection of its ongoing success in delivering compelling products across multiple technologies in disparate markets, said Bryan Prohm, senior analyst with Gartner Dataquest. "Siemens continued to build on the success it achieved during the latter half of 2001."
Mobile phone consumption fell in both Western Europe and Latin America for Q1 of both 2001 and 2002.
"Saturation levels in Western Europe mean driving new growth remains a challenge," said Ben Wood, senior analyst for Gartner Dataquest in Europe. "The industry is faced with an 'application gap,' and subscribers remain unconvinced about the benefits of owning a data-capable phone without the appropriate applications."
Worldwide mobile phone sales dropped for the first time in the industry's history in 2001, falling 3.2 percent to around 399.6 million units. Last year Nokia sold 139.7 million units and second place vendor Motorola sold 59 million units.
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